Contents

Get Started

Before you start, you will need to sign in using either a Windows Live™, Google, or Yahoo! user account. If you have not created a ChronoZoom account, you will be prompted to do so.

Research and Planning

Doing a bit of research and planning will make creating content in ChronoZoom a more enjoyable experience. During this phase, you will get to spend some time learning about history! As your research progresses, you might find it helpful to create a spreadsheet to track the items you want to cover. The following example spreadsheet shows a list of exhibits for a proposed timeline documenting the UFO phenomenon beginning in 1947 with the famous sighting that gave us the term “Flying Saucer”. Each sheet represents the exhibits that are associated with a particular timeline or collection.

Create a Timeline

A timeline is a visual representation of a time period. Timelines can contain other (child) timelines, and exhibits. You can use timelines to depict a range of time such as the lifespan of a historical figure or period of a civilization.

To create a timeline
1. Click the pencil icon to enter authoring mode. Enter your credentials and sign in if prompted.
2. Zoom in to the regime that is the most appropriate for the length of the timeline you are creating (Cosmos, Earth, Life, Prehistory, Humanity).
3. Click the create timeline button.
4. Position your cursor near the point you would like the timeline to begin, then click and drag to create the timeline.

The Create Timeline dialog appears.
5. Enter a title in the Title field.
6. Select a start time and a time unit. Start times can be defined either as a year, or as a specific date. Time units can be one of the following:

Unit

Abbreviation

Value

Giga-annum

Ga

one billion years

Mega-annum

Ma

one million years

Kilo-annum

Ka

one thousand years

Before Common Era

BCE

The period prior to Julian Era 1

Common Era

CE

The period after Julian Era 1

7. Select an end time and a time unit. End times can be defined either as a year, a specific date, or infinite.
8. Click create timeline to create the timeline.

Create an Exhibit

An exhibit consists of a set of content items (artifacts), and is contained by either a timeline or a collection. Content items can be one of the following types:

Image

PDF

Audio

Video

To create an exhibit
1. Click the pencil icon to enter authoring mode. Enter your credentials and sign in if prompted.
2. Zoom in to the regime that is the most appropriate for the length of the exhibit you are creating (Cosmos, Earth, Life, Prehistory, Humanity).
3. Locate the timeline with which the exhibit should be associated.
4. Click the create exhibit button, then click on the area where you would like to create the exhibit. The Create Exhibit dialog will appear.
5. Click create artifact to associate a new content item with the exhibit. Each exhibit must have at least one artifact.
6. Click create artifact to add the content item. The exhibit will list the artifacts that have been created:
7. Click create exhibit to create the exhibit.

I do not see how you create multiple reference to an exhibit or artifact for “deep background” in Attribution. I am also wondering if it possible to create a y axis and not just a chronological x axis, i.e. geographically or otherwise. I further do not understand why some exhibits have broken lines and some are solid.